Robin Flower
Robin Ernest William Flower (1881–1946) was an English poet and scholar, a Celticist, Anglo-Saxonist and translator from the Irish language. He is commonly known in Ireland as "Bláithín" (Little Flower). He married Ida Mary Streeter. Life He was born at Meanwood in Yorkshire, and educated at Leeds Grammar School and Pembroke College, Oxford.Poems of Today, third series (1938), p. xxiv He worked from 1929 as Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museumhttp://www.answers.com/topic/robin-flower Robin Flower and, completing the work of Standish Hayes O'Grady, compiled a catalogue of the Irish manuscripts there. He wrote several collections of poetry, translations of the Irish poets for the Cuala Press, and verses on Blasket Island. He first visited Blasket in 1910, at the recommendation of Carl Marstrander, his teacher at the School of Irish Learning in Dublin;Gonzalez, Alexander G. & Nelson, Emmanuel S. (1997) Modern Irish Writers: a bio-critical sourcebook; p. 322Ó Giolláin, Diarmuid (2000) Locating Irish Folklore: tradition, modernity, identity; pp. 125-26. he acquired there the Irish nickname Bláithín.The Blasket Islands on the Southwest Coast of Ireland: Historical information He suggested a Norse origin for the name "Blasket".http://www.dingle-peninsula.ie/blaskets.html Blaskets Under Flower's influence, George Derwent Thomson and Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson made scholarly visits to Blasket.McCormack, W. J. & Gillan, Patrick (2001) The Blackwell Companion to Modern Irish Culture, p. 73 After his death his ashes were scattered on the Blasket Islands. Writing As a scholar of Anglo-Saxon, he wrote on the Exeter BookChambers, R. W., Förster, Max & Flower, Robin, eds. (1933) The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry He identified interpolations in the Old English Bede, by Laurence Nowell.http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ctb/oen/bede.html BedeFlower, Robin (1935) "Laurence Nowell and the Discovery of England in Tudor Times", in: Proceedings of the British Academy; 21 (1935), p. 62Prescott, Andrew (2004) Robin Flower and Laurence Nowell in Jonathan Wilcox (ed.) Old English Scholarship and Bibliography: essays in honor of Carl T. Berkhout. (Old English Newsletter'' Subsidia ISSN 0739-8549; 32). Mich.: Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University; pp. 41-61 His work on Nowell included the discovery in 1934, in Nowell's transcription, of the poem Seasons for Fasting.Greenfield, Stanley B. & Calder, Daniel Gillmore (1996) A New Critical History of Old English Literature: with a survey of the Anglo-Latin background by Michael Lapidge; p. 234http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16911 He translated from the writings of Tomás Ó Criomhthain, his teacher on Blasket in Irish,http://www.dingle-peninsula.ie/blaskets2.html and wrote a memoir, The Western Island; Or, the Great Blasket (1944), illustrated by his wife Ida.Née Ida Mary Streeter, she was the sister of the biblical scholar Burnett Hillman Streeter, see http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~soperstuff/Surrey/surrey_notes.htm. The essay collection The Irish Tradition (1947) is often cited, and was reprinted in 1994; it includes "Ireland and Medieval Europe", his John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture from 1927. See also * List of British poets References * [[Harold Idris Bell|Bell, Sir Harold]] (1948) Robin Ernest William Flower; 1881-1946, in: Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 32 (includes bibliography, pp. 23-27) Notes External links ;Poems * Translation of "Pangur Bán", a poem by an 8th (? 9th) century Irish monk about his cat ;About * Robin Flower at www.pgil-eirdata.org [[Category:1881 births] Category:1946 deaths Category:Celticists Category:English poets Category:People educated at Leeds Grammar School Category:Anglo-Saxon studies scholars Category:Translators from Irish ga:Robin Flower ('Bláithín')